People are trying just to imitate somebody's enlightenment...

Enlightenment is always accidental. That does not mean that you have not to try for it, but your trying is not going to bring it. Your effort is not going to achieve it. But making the effort, searching in all directions in every possible way, some day it happens -- not because of your efforts but because of your intense urge, a tremendous intensity like a flame within you. But it is always accidental; you cannot say, "It happened because I did that." Otherwise, things would have been very simple.

For example, Buddha was sitting under a bodhi tree, and enlightenment happened. Now, thousands of Buddhist monks.... In every Buddhist monastery there are bo trees, and they are sitting, waiting for enlightenment to happen -- as if the bo tree has something to do with it.

Buddha had eaten that evening a sweet made of milk and rice. Buddhist monks think that has something to do with it, so for them it has become very spiritual food. Before sitting for meditation, they will eat kir -- that is the name of the sweet. But enlightenment has nothing to do with kir.

Buddha was sitting in a certain posture, the lotus posture. So every Buddhist monk sits in the same posture -- perhaps the posture has something to do with it. The posture has nothing to do with it, but millions, throughout history, have been sitting in that posture, torturing their legs. And now Westerners have started learning yoga postures, in which the lotus posture is the most important because Buddha became enlightened in that posture. For a Westerner, who has been sitting in a chair his whole life -- in a cold country you don't sit on the ground -- his legs are in tremendous torture, but he tries hard. It takes almost three months for him to attain to the lotus

posture, but only to the lotus posture; and then he waits his whole life for enlightenment. It doesn't happen.

So it is not a certain sequence of causes that brings enlightenment. Your search, your intense longing, your readiness to do anything -- altogether perhaps they create a certain aroma around you in which that great accident becomes possible.

But you cannot manage it. Every seeker has to begin from the beginning; you cannot learn by watching somebody. That's what all the religions have been doing: a certain prayer, a certain posture, a certain ritual, a certain way of breathing. Nothing helps.

Only the accidental can bring you to freedom, to total newness, freshness, a new birth. Because of this phenomenon all religions have failed, because they were trying just to imitate somebody's enlightenment.

The Taoists are still trying to imitate Lao Tzu -- after twenty-five centuries doing the same things, eating the same things, living the same way, thinking that they will become Lao Tzu. But in twenty-five centuries not a single man has been able to attain the goal.

Jainas are doing it, Buddhists are doing it, all religions are doing a single thing: they have seen somebody whose eyes had a different light, whose gestures had a different grace, whose words had a different authority. He spoke from his very innermost core, he was not a scholar. He was not saying anything within quotes; he was simply expressing his own vision. He was singing his own song, dancing his own dance. He was utterly individual and immensely blissful. People seeing him started imitating -- what he was doing, they should do. And they have been doing, for thousands of years, all kinds of imitations.

And one thing is certain: this existence is absolutely against carbon copies. This existence knows only original faces. It will recognize you only when you come with your original face -- not Christian, not Buddhist, not Hindu, but just you in your utter nudity.

You can create the catalytic situation, and then wait. And have patience; you cannot force enlightenment to happen. You can manage the catalytic atmosphere, that's all that is within your hands -- then wait. Be patient.

Existence is impartial. Whenever the time is ripe, you will suddenly be aflame. All the old will be burned and something new, absolutely new, that you could not have even thought about, dreamed about, will have happened.

It is possible, but nobody can guarantee it.

It is going to happen if you can manage the catalytic atmosphere and wait. One never knows: it may happen today, it may take the whole life -- but it will happen. Just wait. Wait with deep trust in existence.

But whenever it happens, it will come as a great surprise to you, because it is accidental.